Singaporean airline Silk Air opened on Monday a route linking the city-state with Yogyakarta, which is considered a potential tourist destination.

The airline will serve the route three times a week.

“We picked Yogyakarta because it is a potential tourist city with heavy passenger traffic,” Silk Air chief executive Leslie Thng said after landing at Adisutjipto International Airport.

The route will be served on Mondays, Fridays and Sundays using Airbus A319 and A320 narrow-body aircraft in two-class configuration.

Flights will depart from Changi International Airport at 8:10 a.m. local time (7:10am Jakarta time) and arrive at 9:30am. The return flight takes off at 11am and lands at 2:25pm.

Yogyakarta Tourism Agency head M Tazbir was upbeat that the new service would increase the number of visitors, especially from Singapore, to Yogyakarta. In the first half of this year, some 6,000 Singaporeans visited Yogyakarta, he added.

State airport operator PT Angkasa Pura I, which manages the airport, said the load factor on the Singapore-Yogyakarta route was quite promising at 80 per cent. Adisutjipto data and public relations assistant manager Faisal Indra Kusuma said other airlines serving the Singapore-Yogyakarta route included AirAsia and Tiger Airways.